Peter Liberman, Dept. of Political
Science, Queens College, October 2006

A good paper informs and persuades; to do this it must be logically
organized, clearly argued, and well documented. Good writing is hard
work, but following the rules of thumb below will help you to write
better papers and to do so more efficiently.Format and Grammar15. Avoid convoluted, run-on, pretentious
sentences that
are hard to understand and could be written much more
straightforwardly. You will be able to say more in less space if
you minimize unnecessary prepositional clauses, obvious or meaningless
comments (e.g., “It is important to bear in mind that...”), and passive
voice constructions (e.g., use “Hillary kicked Bill” rather than “Bill
was kicked by Hillary”).

16. Use correct grammar and spelling. This is not an old-fashioned,
pedantic requirement. Errors here can muddle the clarity of your
argument, and also can lead readers to wonder if you might have been as
sloppy in your research and analysis as with your grammar and spelling.
With the advent of word-processing spell-check programs, moreover,
there is no excuse for bad spelling.

17. Use a simple format. All papers should be typed,
double-spaced, paginated (i.e., use page numbers), and be printed with
normal type-fonts and margins. Do not include extra spacing between
paragraphs, as this wastes space and suggests to your professor that
you are padding the paper to get to the assigned page length. Staple
papers together--folders and covers are unnecessary and
cumbersome. Always keep an extra copy of the paper, on disk or
paper, in case the professor loses it (we're not called “absent minded”
for nothing).

18. Use standard citation formats. When citing in footnotes, use the
same format as the first footnote below the first time you cite a
source.[1] For subsequent citations to the same source, use
abbreviated citations (see the examples in the footnote to this
sentence).[2] A somewhat easier citation method is to provide a
parenthetical reference at the end of a sentence (Snyder 1991,
42). If you use parenthetical references, though, you must
provide complete citations for every work cited in a bibliography at
the end of the paper.